This morning while preaching an Ascension sermon from Philippian 3:20-21, I went on a brief detour to speak about the various ways in which biblical writers relate to empire. This is relevant to us because the New Testament was given during the heyday of the Roman Empire, and we are seeking to live as Christians in the days of the emerging American empire.
I thought of five different “takes” on empire that we should consider all together. We need to take all them together, not elevating any one of them far above all the others in an isolated or imbalanced way. All this said, it is also worth noting that one of the five options is not that of the Church getting out the pom poms and becoming a cheerleader for empire. But here are the five “angles” on empire:
First is the use of empires and kingdoms as a quarry for illustrations. When Christ is identified as a king, we know something of what a king is from earthly kingdoms. This is the use that Paul was developing in Phil. 3:20-21, and which was the basis for my rabbit trail in the first place. In this, we have to take care to make the comparisons at the right point (e.g. comparing majesty with majesty), and not at the wrong point (e.g. comparing human tyranny with divine sovereignty).
The second vantage on empire is that of pragmatic and practical use. Paul used Roman roads, appealed to Caesar as was his legal right, and was careful to let the men interrogating him know that he was a Roman citizen. He tells Christians that they are to be dutiful citizens or subjects (Rom. 13:1-7), which is a simple extension of this principle. This pragmatic and dutiful use of the fact of empire can certainly include gratitude for the blessings that come to us by means of empire, but that gratitude must never cross over into a lickspittle idolatry.
The third perspective is to see the hostility that is implicit between rulers who will not acknowledge the lordship of Christ in the public square, on the one hand, and the preachers of Christ’s kingdom on the other. This is the perspective that sees the empire as a ravenous beast, persecuting and attacking the saints of God. This of course is the stock image of the Roman Empire in the book of Revelation, and was characteristic of the communist empires of the last century. Unless our people accept the lordship of Christ over them, it will happen here as well.
A fourth perspective is that of seeing the vanity of all great earthly powers. Only Christ’s kingdom “cannot be shaken.” Compared to His kingdom, all our earthly empires are nothing but vapor and smoke. To take the Old Testament imagery, the nations are less than nothing, they are dust in the balances, not worth the effort it takes to weigh them.
If you go out to the landfill frequently, as I do in making my weekly dump run, you will see great piles of garbage getting heaped up. Periodically, when the pile gets impressive, you might see a homeless guy run out, climb the pile and dance around on top of it. He’s the president. He’s the emperor. God lets him have his day, of course, but off to the side the bulldozers of God are rumbling, and the ground is throbbing beneath our feet. When the signal is given, the bulldozers of God scrape the thing level, and the garbage starts to pile up again, until it is time for a new superpower. Until it is time for gods to walk the earth again.
And last, we see empire as satanic glory. This is an odd one, for several reasons. The first oddity is the apparent conflict with the previous perspective — but it is really only an apparent conflict. The second oddity is because we generally have a really messed up view of what Satanism actually is. Say Satanism, and people think of occultism, severed goats’ heads, guttering candles, and the witches out of Macbeth. But empire is satanic in its apparent virtues — Satan offered all the kingdoms of men in their glory to Christ, and Christ was tempted by it. Satan is an angel of light, and it is not surprising that his ministers imitate him in this. It is precisely the satanic aspects of empire that will tempt Christians into an idolatry that praises empire in ways that are not seemly. There was a time when Ozymandias looked pretty impressive, and a certain kind of Christian mind always wants to identify such rulers with the work of the kingdom. Gratitude and shrewd use, yes. Idolatry, never. But note that empires are satanic, not because they are made up of marching orcs, but because of their great virtues.
So as we study empire (and we should be studying empire), we need to take care to hold all five of these perspectives together. If we don’t, then we are not responding like biblical Christians, but are simply using a partial biblical truth to go off on an ideological jag. Which wouldn’t be good.